Narrowboat at sea adventure

[TheBiscuits]

3 hours ago, DRP said:

That's the Thomas, a short boat built by Harkers of Knottingley,for Walter Holden, a Skipton coal merchant.She replaced a steamer, and although there is debate about whether she actually had a steam engine, I am pretty sure I've seen pictures of her bearing the chimney and plumbing of a steam engine. 

She had an Armstrong Siddeley diesel engine when she went over the weir.

She was owned by Bernard Jessop, and carrying scaffolding tubes, when tied up above the weir one night, some dead-heads undid the mooring ropes. The boat drifted on to the weir, and was carried over by floodwater. She was left sitting on the flat concrete run-off.

The owner was able to unload the cargo, and planned to try to get her off, but the river flooded again, and carried her over onto the rocks with the stern under water.

Over the years she has steadily filled with rubbish, and rust has done a pretty good job of destroying her.

Thanks for that David - I just assumed it was a pudding because of where it is.

 

3 hours ago, DRP said:

The terrible shame is that steps were not taken to recover her when the millennium footbridge was built and all the work was carried out on the weir .What a lost opportunity!

Get Paul and a couple of winches and you should be able to lift the boat using the bridge as a gantry. 

You will need a couple of volunteers with shovels to empty the hold and we will cheer from the river bank!

 

[DRP]

14 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

 

Get Paul and a couple of winches and you should be able to lift the boat using the bridge as a gantry. 

You will need a couple of volunteers with shovels to empty the hold and we will cheer from the river bank!

 

At risk of hi-jacking this thread. . .

With Roger and several others, we formed group called Friends of Thomas years ago, with the aim of recovering and eventually restoring Thomas. The newly-appointed BW manager at Castleford was keen to help, and was all set to pursue the process of BW taking over ownership of the boat.He even offered to get BW's crane barge into the pool below the weir to assist, but found they couldn't get it through the road bridge. After this, the word was we could still have it if we could recover it, but we couldn't go onto the weir in case we damaged it and brought the Navigation to a halt(!). A lot of ingenious theorising ensued, but we were never able to progress further.

Some time later, on a family trip on the Bridgewater canal, we were filling up at a water point when another narrowboat appeared and tied up waiting for us to go.The conversation went:

Narrow boater: "I'm getting a barge off British Waterways"

Me:"That's great. Are you getting it off the tender list?"

Boater:" No. It's stuck on the weir at Castleford. They said I can have it if I can get it off"

Me:"Oh, it's a short boat!"

Boater:" Oh no, it's a right big 'un - sixty foot, at least!"

 

(sorry, Moderators. If there's anymore Thomas chat, maybe we should start another thread). 

[Fender151]

On 21/02/2018 at 16:37, dccruiser said:

Couldnt agree more after my 15 hours on the tidal trent in full flood ... as for the stability of landing craft, when we arrived in the south atlantic our first casualty was a guy who shot himself in the foot as the LC's were bouncing up and down by 4 to 6 feet! 

Rick 

Wouldn't surprise me if he was aiming for the skipper!